Happy First Valentine's Day

Dear Sadie,

Yesterday was your first Valentine's Day and your dad was happy to have two Valentines this year. He got up early and surprised us with coffee and chocolate doughnuts and flowers in bed. Later we took the BOB down to the beach.



You wore your bear suit down to the beach because it was a bit chilly. By the time we got home the little pink bear was fast asleep.


Later you interrupted a nice candle light dinner with a major diaper blowout that necessitated a change of clothes for both you and your dad. Such is the romantic life with a baby. No one minded though.

Love, Mama

Hittin' the Road

Dear Sadie,

We got the BOB out of storage and put it together the other day. It is a very handsome vehicle. You woke up from your nap late and it was too dark and cold to take it very far, but I got you bundled up and we went around the block. You looked really small in it, but the straps seem to hold you securely. The BOB really handles well (compared to shopping carts and your other stroller that Larry likes and you do not). It has shocks to smooth out the bumps and the big tires will go down stairs fairly easily. You were very quiet the entire ride, just looking around. Since you did not cry, I have to assume you like it. Here's what you looked like when we got back:


The owner's manual says you can ride in it until you are 70 lbs. I'm hoping that means that you and I have many happy hours to come out in the world with the wind in our hair.

Love, Mama

16 Weeks Old

Dear Sadie,

You are now 16 weeks old and I just want to freeze time for a while. I want to hold on to the size and temperament you are right now because it feels like you are growing and changing so quickly. I can't believe another month is gone. You are getting so big! Already your 3 month size jammies are too small and I just got them out.

We went to a dinner party at Bob Lloyd's last night and you had fun smiling at the other guests. Bob in particular got big toothless grins from you. Unlike your friend Phoebe who went right to sleep in her carseat and slept soundly through the whole event, you wanted to stay awake and party. We got home about 10 PM and you still did not want to go to sleep. You wanted to laugh at your dad. I finally bounced you to sleep sometime after 11 and then you slept a WHOLE SIX HOURS without waking up. According to the books, sleeping a six hour stretch qualifies as sleeping through the night. I was even awake at 5 AM, astounded that you were still asleep and waiting for you to wake up and eat. I think we even slept better than your dad who wants to give the cat to a new home after having to let him in and out several times last night. So the lessons we learned are: 1. our baby likes to party and 2. Tom Fudge better shape up.





Sleeping in general is still a work in progress. Sometimes you have a hard time falling asleep, but other times I put you in your swing and you are conked out within 30 seconds. You are a long way from just being put down in your crib and falling asleep on your own. The only surefire way to get you to sleep when all else fails is to put you facing me in the Baby Bjorn, give you a pacifier, and bounce gently on the ball until you drift off. You usually take your afternoon nap that way while I work quietly on the computer.

We think the first time you rolled over from front to back at 11 weeks was a fluke because you did not repeat the stunt for a few weeks. However, yesterday you rolled over from front to back 4 times in a row. It makes you mad when you have just managed to flip yourself on your back and I put you on your front so you can entertain me by doing it again.



We got out the Johnny Jumper and you like to sit in it, but you have not worked out the mechanics of hopping around yet. You are getting better at holding things in your hands with the goal of getting stuff into your mouth. You have also discovered your feet. When you are on the changing table, you like to reach up with your hands and grab them. You like to be put in an upright position to see what is going on around you instead of lying down. You also like playing Superbaby (flying) and Stiff as a Board (you stand erectly in our laps and we tilt you in all directions).

Your vocal repertoire is increasing. You have added some squeaks and squeals as well as a droning "uhhhuummmmmhhhhh" hum that usually indicates that you are tired of whatever we are doing. Here's a video of you making noises:



We also like to read books together. We sit in the glider and read for as long as you are interested. Your favorite book is Where the Wild Things Are. You wave your arms and legs around excitedly at the line, "they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws". I like that book a lot too. Every word is exactly right like a good poem, and the illustrations, of course, are amazing too. Our plan is to get you reading banned books as early as possible. After we finish reading, I cradle you in my arms and sing a song or two while you look up at the bird mobile I made for you. I'm glad now that all the birds on the bottom branch flipped upside down. It is like they are looking at you.




We love you Sadie June. May your fourth month be filled with giggles.

Love, Mama

Funny Hair

Dear Sadie,

The other morning you woke up with a funny case of bed head so I took some pictures. Your hair is pretty amusing right now all the time. A swirl spinning clockwise on the back of your head dictates much of the direction your sweet fine hair wants to fly. (Do all hair swirls spin clockwise? Do hair swirls in the Southern hemisphere go counter-clockwise?) You also have a bald spot in the back from rubbing your head from side to side. The bald spot is rimmed underneath by the longest hair on your head which gives you a funny little neck fringe. And when you get out of your bath your hair is curly. It is getting lighter underneath and it is now sort of a silvery light brown color. Your eyelashes are long and dark but your eyebrows are barely there. I predict you are going to have blonde curls soon and then have darker hair later in your childhood.

Lunch With Philip

Dear Sadie,

We had lunch with Phil and Kim again and this time I brought my photographer.










I am going to offer you your first dating advice: you can't go wrong with a boy that makes you laugh.

Love, Mama

Photo Post!

Dear Sadie,

Here's some photos of you from your third month.

You can now face out in the Baby Bjorn to see the world:


Looking cute sitting on the sofa:


You can stand up:


In this one, you had just grabbed that parrot, pulled it down and into your mouth.


You and Larry enjoyed some sunny morning playtime in your crib:


Gratuitously cute post-bath picture:

Hanging out in bed:


With Daddy:

Weekend in Palm Springs

Dear Sadie,

You went on your first trip this past weekend to Jonathan and Mimi's wedding in Palm Springs. You were pretty good overall, but we did have to blast the vacuum cleaner track in the car a few times. It still astounds me that the droning noise, the louder the better, makes you stop fussing and fall asleep.

Once we arrived in Palm Springs, you did some relaxing in our fancy hotel:



Then we got dressed up and went to a beautiful wedding on a mountain overlooking the Coachella Valley. I don't have any photos of the wedding to post, however, because your dad took a camera that uses film and I forgot my camera, as per usual. The next morning we met up with the bride and groom and the bride's family in a classic Palm Springs modernist mansion. You slept through that part though.



It was a nice weekend in a beautiful place. You've got 3 more important weddings this spring to attend! Hopefully they will all be this easy.

Love, Mama

Happy Inauguration Day

Dear Sadie,

This morning we watched the Obama inauguration and got a little caught up in the historical moment. You were asleep and woke up in time to hear his speech. Or more accurately, you woke up in time to distract me from giving his speech 100% of my attention.

One of our first outings into the world was to walk down to the Cardiff library and vote on November 4, 2008 when you were 2 weeks old. Later that night as the election results came in, I drank champagne and your daddy took your picture swaddled in a blanket next to the giant head of Obama on TV as he gave his acceptance speech in Chicago. We knew we were watching an historic moment, but that was nothing compared to the collective excitement in the world today. I've never been proud to be an American before and it is a weird feeling.

Hopefully Obama will be the president until you are 8 years old and the world will be a better place for you to grow up in. I'm pretty sure you were laughing today which is only appropriate.

Cheers, Mama

12 Weeks

Dear Sadie,

You are 12 weeks old today! Everyone says the first three months are the hardest and I can see that you are slowly turning into a more content little creature. The last few days you have been calm in the car and a mellow little baby during some social visits with your friends Philip and Phoebe. Your favorite place is still in the Baby Bjorn on the move somewhere, but you will also sit for longer periods just looking around and surveying the scene. The playmat is still a good time. I left you alone for a few minutes the other day when you were entertaining yourself on the mat and came back to catch you holding hands with the dangling monkey.

You are getting really good at controlling that little head and neck. You have also found that it is fun to shove your hands in your mouth, sometimes both at once. A new trick you learned in the last few days is the assisted stand. Your little legs can support your weight now and you like being held upright and kicking your legs straight when you feel pressure on your feet. You haven't repeated the roll over again, however, after that day when you did it 2 times in a row.

Looking at your little face and watching you break into a big gummy grin never gets old. You seem like you are on the verge of laughing. I can't wait to see you giggle and find out what you think is funny.

It is now time to pack up all the 0-3 month clothes and get out the 3-6 month stash. It is sort of sad that the sweet little footed jammies we liked to dress you in had such a short lifespan, but it is also fun to start fresh with all new stuff.

The last three months did go by quickly, but my life without you also seems like a really really long time ago. Different things are important and much does not matter at all anymore. I remember trying to imagine what our lives would be like back when I was pregnant and I was wrong about a lot of it. I knew we would love you though.

Love and kisses, Mama

Bad Kitty

Dear Sadie,

Even though Tom Fudge is generally a pretty good cat and the least likely of our pets to bite babies, he's not allowed to sit on your stuff.


Here's what happens when you activate the "Mozart" function on the playmat:

Drool and Drool Accessories

Dear Sadie,

After 2.5 drool-free months, you are suddenly considerably wetter around the chin area. That's OK because now you have an excuse to wear the cute bibs I made you during the freewheeling summer of '08.


In other news, you had lunch with your friend Philip yesterday. He's totally into you. You liked looking at him but weren't sure if you wanted to be more than friends just yet. I wish I brought my camera because now that I'm addicted to blog-ahol, I want to document just about everything. The way you two were looking at each other was funny, but pretty much everything little Phil does is funny. Next time I'll get the photo.

Love, Mama

Feet

Dear Sadie,

I raided your daddy's digital camera and found some funny stuff. These are two short videos about your feet. In the first one, try not to be distracted by my less than glamorous pregnant appearance and focus on the top of my giant belly near my hand.



The second video was taken of your little wrinkled feet when you were still in the hospital. I think it has the dramatic quality of a nature documentary, like Jacques Cousteau filming eels.

Milestone: Roll Over

Dear Sadie,

You rolled over today from your front to your back! I thought it was a fluke, but I put you on your belly again and you did it a second time! You hate tummy time* so much that you figured out a way to escape it. I tried to go for a third roll over, but this time you got mad and cried instead, which is the original method of getting out of tummy time.

You didn't seem at all surprised to have maneuvered yourself onto your back, but Larry woke up and came running over to see what I was going on about.

Now you are asleep in your little pink bear coat in the carrier and we are going to head down to the beach for a walk.

Love, Mama


*Tummy time: since pediatricians now insist babies should sleep on their backs as a measure to prevent SIDS, babies have to spend time on their fronts each day in order to build neck and arm strength in order to hold their heads up and eventually crawl.

"GHEEE"

Dear Sweet Sadie,

You are 11 weeks old now and you are conversing with us in your own language. Earlier this morning as I was changing your diaper you informed me, "ah-gheee goo." Your little voice is so sweet. Since you haven't discovered how to turn up the volume yet, your chatty episodes are uttered in a soft, hesitant tone like you are telling us a secret.



Soon you will be 3 months old which, according to the books, is the magic beginning of babyhood proper when you are no longer a newborn. Already you are an easier baby, partly because you are more content in general and learning to communicate in other ways besides crying, and partly because we are getting better at anticipating your your moods and can often give you what you need before you start to squawk. We rarely have to take you into the bathroom and turn on the hairdryer anymore to get you to stop fussing.

Right around Christmas, you seemed to turn a corner temperament wise. You were suddenly less fussy and wanted to spend longer periods of time engaging with us. You got a playmat for Christmas and you love laying on your back and looking at the dangling animals. In the week or so since Christmas, you are now able to bat at the animals with your arms in movements that are still pretty erratic, but getting more and more calculated. Occasionally you'll even manage to grip something in your hand and hold it for a while.

We spend a lot of time in the bed, partly because the bedroom is the easiest room to keep consistently warm, and partly because we just like it there. Larry likes it in the bed too and can usually be found on the bottom left corner curled up like a fox. We have a radio, a TV and my computer in the bedroom which is pretty much everything we need. Michael even brings in meals sometimes. This morning we had coffee and bagels in the bed while listening to Weekend Edition on NPR and laughing at you propped up on a pillow smiling at us.

You also spend a good part of the day in the Baby Bjorn. We go for walks and putter around the house and frequently I just sit on the green exercise ball and bounce until you are asleep. You are asleep in the carrier right now as I type this.

You don't really like being in the car seat or riding in the car, so I have to brace myself before I take you out into the world beyond what we can walk to. You've gotten better though since I made a CD of a vacuum cleaner that I blast into the backseat when you start to cry. This trick works about 70% of the time.

We have settled into some homey routines. We all usually have a leisurely morning with Michael making breakfast for us before he goes out to his office to start his work day. In the early evenings we have been watching The Andy Griffith Show until it's time for Jeopardy. It's hard not to shout out the answers (or rather the questions) and wake you up if you are having an evening nap.

You are a very pretty little baby, with the world's longest eyelashes and a sweet rosebud mouth. We aren't sure who you look like yet. People think you look like Michael, but we think that is just because your hair is dark like his. Actually, you can see silvery light colored hair growing underneath the brown and I think it won't be long until you are blonde. Right now your hair is about the color of a penny. Not a shiny new red penny, but an older brown one that has a subtle copper sheen.

We love you Sadie June. We can't wait to see what is next.